SCIENTISTS HAVE CREATED a car seat that can identify human beings by their bottoms, Time reported last week.

My first thought: So what? I can tell the difference between Kirsty Alley’s rear end and Keira Knightly’s. One is eight times the width of the other.

But I read on. When you sit on the car seat designed by Associate Professor Shigeomi Koshimizu of Japan (pic above), 360 hidden sensors measure your bottom.

If you are wearing the registered driver’s butt on your hip bones, the car engine turns itself on.

His supporters say butt-triggered security devices are the way of the future, because they are instant and unobtrusive, unlike eye-scanners and fingerprint readers.

This sounds like a great idea to me, especially just after the Christmas and New Year holiday season.

ME ON THE PHONE: “Hello, boss? I can’t come to work today as my butt is too fat.”

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But my opinion often diverges from that of the general public, so I decided to ask readers at the Quite Good Noodle Shop for their opinions.

Businessman Karuna Menon liked the idea. He said that the next time a guy’s wife asks if her butt looks big, the husband can just say: “I dunno, ask the car.”

Lift Lurker had a question: “If you rest your face on the seat and the car engine starts, what does it mean?”

Wendy Tong hoped immigration departments won’t adopt the invention: “I do NOT want to passport officers to tell me that the butt in my passport doesn’t look like the butt in my pants.”

Grandpa Christian Fardel worried that wives could program the passenger seat not to accept the mistress’s bottom.

(Yes, he’s French, how did you guess?)

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ON OTHER TOPICS…

I WAS HORRIFIED to read that some scientists believe the Mayan prediction that the world will end in 2012 is FALSE. Have you seen the projected rise in school fees!? If the world doesn’t end, we’re going to be SO screwed.

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A YOUNG MAN in India stole a train to give to his girlfriend last week, an alert reader from South Asia informed me.

Ketan Kumar, 24, thought his beloved would be pleased to be presented with the 8.20 pm express to Amrapali. Apparently girlfriend and police were unimpressed.

Ketan, buddy, you need to know more about how girls think. Big, ugly steaming lump of metal? Perfect for guys! For girls, think credit cards, designer handbags, Justin Bieber, boundless wealth, etc.

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THIS WEEK’s irony award goes to travel writer Joshua Samuel Brown, who last week decided he was “Bored of blogging, tweeting and living in public.” He broadcast the thought across the social media to ensure no one missed it.

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LIFT LURKER came up with a good plan to solve the turf wars between Bangkok’s two corpse collection agencies.

Simply divide up the city’s population at birth.

“They can tattoo the baby’s bottom to show ownership,” he said. “Then they can send cards regularly to ‘their’ citizens saying: ‘Happy birthday! Only 70 more years to go on average!’”

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THANKS to a reader named Zen Poet for this haiku (poems with 5 / 7/ 5 syllables):

Haikus are easy

But sometimes they don’t make sense.

Refrigerator.

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